BREMERTON — When Erin Falcone started volunteering with Kitsap Community Food Co-op in 2015, the idea of a single location for local, natural food in Kitsap seemed to be on its last legs.

A plan for a community-owned grocery store that worked with local producers to provide fresh food first sprung up in 2008, and for several years garnered attention and a growing membership. But enthusiasm for the project stalled after almost a decade without results.

“They were really hurting for support staff and volunteers when I came in,” said Falcone, now president of the organization’s board of directors.

It’s been a sudden turnaround for the co-op, which last month opened a small grocery inside Sweet and Smokey Diner at the corner of Park Avenue and Fifth Street in downtown Bremerton.

The goal is to provide a place to buy healthy food while keeping money in Kitsap, Falcone said. Members pay a $200 fee, giving them part-ownership and other benefits like dividends.

KCFC’s plan followed guidelines from national co-op organizations, which included waiting for membership to be in the thousands before opening. The board paid for expensive feasibility studies and starting searching for grant funding and locations.

By 2016, membership had plateaued and all but one of the board members stepped down. Treasurer Kevin Koski, unwilling to see the idea die, chose volunteers like Falcone and Kevin Gorman, who was won election last month to the Bremerton City Council, to try and save it.

The new board — which thought of itself as a kind of “transition team” — set to work trying to provide local, healthy food as soon as possible.

“Basically, we triaged it,” Falcone said.

Instead of opening a full-fledged grocery store, which may have cost millions of dollars, the group went small. They partnered with Sweet and Smokey Diner on Park Avenue, whose owner Betty Walker has been searching for an indoor market of some kind to set up shop in an adjacent space in the diner for several years.

“It just fits right in with what we’re already doing,” said Walker, whose restaurant specializes in cured meats and homemade BBQ.

The situation is a win-win for the co-op, which is running completely on volunteers until it can get on its feet. Store hours are the same as Sweet and Smokey’s, and Walker handles any co-op transactions while it's unstaffed. Walker gets the year-round, indoor market she’s been hoping for.

KCFC will be staffed by volunteers for the near future, and all profits will go directly back into growing the business. Gorman said about 60 volunteers are on board so far.

Eventually, the co-op hopes to connect with local vendors and expand out of the back of the building. KCFC wants to start hiring employees within the first year.

Right now, the selection is small. But organizers say just opening the co-op is a statement to the community, a shot at winning back trust and proving a community-run grocery store can work.

“We’re being very upfront with our member-owners, it’s not intended to be full service,” Falcone said. “It’s a fundraising platform that allows us to buy back our reputation to a degree.”

“This really proves our worth,” Gorman said.

There’s confidence that the time and place is right for a co-op to thrive in Bremerton. Despite growing population and development, downtown lacks a good option for healthy food.

In 2015, many parts of Bremerton qualified as a “food desert” under USDA guidelines — a term that refers to an area where at least 500 people or a third of the population live more than a mile away from a grocery store.

That fact hasn’t escaped co-op organizers, who say they have plans to be that store. But they have to gain the public’s trust first.

“The only way out is to start making good on these promises,” Falcone said.